Update: Breezy weather to create hazardous marine conditions

The five-day forecast includes breezy weather on Monday that will create hazardous marine conditions. (Credit: NWS-Miami)

SUNDAY UPDATE: Gusty winds are expected to set up along Florida’s East Coast in the wake of a cold front that moved through the area Saturday night. Forecasters are predicting hazardous marine conditions with winds gusting out of the southeast as high as 29 mph on Monday.

Seas of 6 to 7 feet will build in the Atlantic. The winds will also create a moderate to high risk of rip currents at the beaches.

Although precipitation probabilities jump to 50 percent on Monday night in Palm Beach, forecasters said less than a tenth of an inch of rain will fall between Miami and Palm Beach.

The remainder of the week looks dry with seasonable temperatures in the forecast. Highs should be in the 70s and lows in the 60s.

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ORIGINAL POST: Here’s an anomaly this winter — a streak of dry weather.

February is actually running a rainfall deficit and it’s pretty much a lock that the first half of the month will go into the books with below normal precipitation. There has not been any measurable rainfall at Palm Beach International Airport since Feb. 7, when 0.05 of an inch fell during a three-day wet spell.

That should change on Monday, according to National Weather Service forecasters, when precipitation probabilities climb to 30 percent — 50 percent on Monday night and 40 percent on Tuesday.

Through Friday, PBIA picked up 0.88 of an inch of rain this month, a deficit of 0.26 of an inch. By comparison, January had almost 10 inches of rain, more than 6 inches over normal, and December came in with 7.34 inches, almost 4 inches over normal. Those numbers are typical of an El Niño winter.

Still, don’t expect any torrential rainfall on Monday and Tuesday. Weather Underground is forecasting a relatively modest 0.12 of an inch Monday night through Tuesday. Accuweather is predicting almost a third of an inch over the two-day period.

Rain is not mentioned in the local forecast through the end of next week, as temperatures rebound into the upper-70s before settling into the low-70s on Thursday and Friday in Palm Beach.

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The National Weather Service in Miami took a look at the Arctic outbreak of 1899 on its Facebook page. (Credit: NWS-Miami)

BELOW ZERO IN FLORIDA: The Arctic outbreak that socked the Midwest and the Northeast this weekend didn’t make it to South Florida, although the cold front set to roll through on Saturday is associated with the polar air mass. It may be enough to keep Palm Beach from hitting 70 on Sunday.

But the Arctic surges that made it through the Florida peninsula in February 1899 brought the coldest temperature ever recorded in the state: 2 degrees below zero on Tallahassee on Feb. 14. It’s the only below zero temperature ever recorded in Florida, according to the National Weather Service.

Measurable snow fell in Lakeland and Tampa with a trace falling in Fort Myers. Jacksonville had 2 inches of snow.

The cold air filtered all the way down to Cuba, weather historians said, with Havana falling to 54 degrees.